When you create a professional voicemail greeting, it can be a good idea to think about what your callers might want to know. After doing so, you can make a list of points to cover in your voice message; it might also be a good idea to write out the entire greeting on a piece of paper. The ideal message should be somewhere between 10 and 20 seconds, so you may want to time yourself repeating your message before you record it. After composing your telephone message, it can be a good idea to get a second opinion of this greeting so you can make sure it sounds professional. Writing down a voicemail greeting helps prevent mistakes when recording it.
Editor’s Note: The article is part of the blog series Grow Your Business brought to you by the marketing team at UniTel Voice, the virtual phone system priced and designed for startups and small business owners.

Made famous by George Costanza as you can see the clip here, the answering machine song may seem like a good idea. It's out of the box, unexpected, and definitely a novelty, but unless you're in the music business, it's probably not a good idea. You'll definitely irritate your mother (or anyone else important who calls you frequently) and you won't make a good first impression with your message.
Recording voicemail greetings for your business or personal life requires a separate list of priorities, because they are being used for two distinct purposes and will be heard by two very different types of callers. I have a friend with two cell phones - one for work, and one for personal calls - and if you call both lines, you would never know it's the same person.